Skinny Mushroom Spinach Lasagna

November 5, 2014

A super filling meal that’s completely vegetarian friendly! This spinach lasagna is loaded with chopped mushrooms, ricotta cheese, and whole wheat lasagna noodles. It’s the perfect dish to serve to vegetarians for Thanksgiving! And don’t be surprised when the carnivores love it just as much!

Holy comfort food!

This comfy, cozy, mushroom and spinach lasagna is heavenly to me. Basically what happened is all things comfy and cozy went and got together in a pan and came out all nice and layered and delicious, just in time for din din. I’ll get into all the lovely, saucy, cheesy deets in just a second though.

The truth about this lasagna is that even with the lasagna noodles, the riccotta, mozzarella, and loads of filling + yummy tomato sauce, each piece only contains 245 calories! Shut the front door. I know, I’m stoked too!

Comfort food that’s waistline friendly? Yes, please!

To a comfort food junkie, like myself, this lasagna is truly cheesy bliss. If you’re skeptical on how it can be so low in calories and still so delicious, keep reading, i’ll explain everything. And leftovers? I say bring it. I’d welcome these kind of leftovers forever and ever. ♥ and on that point, i’m currently scarfing down large bits of this leftover lasagna and have no shame in saying it’s still slightly cold in the center but I absolutely do not care.

But really this spinach lasagna is great because, first and foremost, it has the most incredible mushroom, spinach, and ricotta cheese filling. We start by letting some onions sweat in a little bit of butter. Next, we add in 2 heaping cups of chopped mushrooms, get those sweating too. The mushrooms add such a nice texture variation to the lasagna.

Next we add in the garlic (because what is anything without garlic?) And 2 boxes of defrosted spinach that’s had all the liquid squeezed out of it. You can definitely use fresh spinach too if you’d like, I’ve always got frozen spinach in the freezer so it’s perfect to toss into meals quickly and easily. A bit of seasoning goes in here too. Remember to salt your filling liberally because once it gets mixed with the ricotta and egg you can’t check for salt! A pinch of red pepper flakes and a hint of nutmeg take this lasagna filling to new heights.

Another noteworthy fact about this lasagna is that it has the perfect amount of sauce. Enough to tie things together but not so much that one would find their lasagna noodles swimming in chunky tomato sauce. Which is über important because we (you & I) like sauce but don’t want to have our spinach lasagna floating in a tomato soup. Ya hear me?

The rest of this comes together pretty quickly. A little ricotta, a little parmesan, an egg, mixed with the sauteed spinach filling and then we file all this into neat, pretty little layers. We skimp a little on ‘layers’ to save a few calories from the extra lasagna noodles. If you’re not concerned about it, make as many layers as you’d like, there’s plenty of filling! Add extra cheese too if that your thing, because you know it’s mine.

One last note: Anees (the hubs) proved that you don’t have to be a total veghead to enjoy this little lasagna. Boy am I glad to hear that this is spinach lasagna is a possibility more than once a year. 😉

Skinny Mushroom Spinach Lasagna

Author: Little Spice Jar

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 40 mins

Total time: 55 mins

Serves: 12 pieces

A super filling meal that’s completely vegetarian friendly! This spinach lasagna is loaded with chopped mushrooms, ricotta cheese, and whole wheat lasagna noodles. It’s the perfect dish to serve to vegetarians for Thanksgiving! And don’t be surprised when the carnivores love it just as much!

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté them for 2 minutes or until they start to just become translucent. Add the chopped mushrooms and continue to cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic, spinach, red pepper flakes, and nutmeg. Sauté for just a minute or so until all the ingredients are well mixed together. Season with salt and pepper.

In a large bowl, combine the ricotta, egg, and parmesan cheese. Add the spinach mixture to the ricotta and stir to combine.

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spread a little bit of tomato sauce in the bottom of a 9×13 baking pan. Layer with 3 lasagna noodles, 1/2 of the spinach mixture, 1/3 of the tomato sauce, and 1/3 of the cheese. Repeat until all the layers are formed. Ending with noodles, sauce, and cheese. Bake covered for 20 minutes and then uncovered for 10 more minutes. Let stand for 10-15 minutes so that the lasagna noodles can soak up all the extra deliciousness. Cut and serve warm.

[i]For the lasagna noodles: I under-boiled mine because I didn’t want them to get super soft during baking. My package called for 9 minutes for cooked, I boiled mine for just 5 minutes.[br]Additional tomato sauce, cheese, and lasagna noodles can be added to preference. Feel free to make more layers in the lasagna with additional lasagna noodles if you like more layers.[/i]

Hey Liz! Sorry not understanding what you mean by ‘skinny part’ so i’ll try and answer the question as best as I can. You can definitely add ground meat to the recipe, i’d brown it off on a skillet with a little bit of oil, salt, pepper, garlic, etc. Drain all of the fat, allow it to cool slightly, and layer it just after the spinach mixture (in 2 halves). Also, you may want to add addition lasagna sheets for more stability as 9 may not be enough to hold it all together. Hope that answers your question, if not, feel free to message back 🙂

Jerrie, the sauce I used was a Classico Tomato + Basil sauce — it’s my absolute favorite and I use it all the time. I usually use Delallo or Barilla for my whole wheat lasagna noodles. Not sure which one it was this time, but i’ve definitely made it with both before!